What is the “Ocean Beach Conspiracy”?

Is it a plot by a local optometrist to buy up all of Newport Avenue and make it all “mixed-use”? Is it the plan of the homeless and their advocates to “take over” the OB Town Council?

Or is it a ploy by local businesses to drive out undesirables? Or is it the secret strategy of Starbucks to link-up with British Petroleum and open combo-coffee and gas stores across the community?

Nope, it’s none of these. Those are so minor and trivial.

The real “Ocean Beach Conspiracy” is a secret plan to buy up all the lots in Ocean Beach – plot by plot – by developers masquerading as different groups, to combine the properties, tear down the structures, pave over Ocean Beach and put in … (drum roll please) … the new San Diego Airport.

This plan – the Ocean Beach Conspiracy – is at the bottom of the end run of the series “Terriers” – the private eye TV saga filmed in OB earlier this year. The last episode of 13 in the series plays out this Wednesday, December 1st, on the FX channel.

It’s an exciting finale to what has been called one of the best television shows on the tube right now, a cross between “The Big Lebowski” and either “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” or James Gardner’s Seventies private eye series, “Rockford Files” – depending on your orientation, I guess.

With its scenes of OB, great acting, quick segues, well-thought out scripts, its everyday street dialogue, its total unpretentious attitude – all combine to make you feel right at home, especially if you’re from or live in OB.

If this sounds like a promotion, you’re half right. We here at Rag centro have been genuinely enjoying the weekly, one hour show and look forward to each new journey into OBland as TV. We’ve posted many reviews (go to the nav bar and type in “Terriers”), our blogger Dave Rice has been formulating re-caps of most of the episodes, and has even compiled a “Terriers’ Cast of Characters” list for us. And as our current Weekly Poll on the sidebar shows, there’s lots of local interest.

Episode 13 coming up this week was stage-crafted in last week’s addition of our viewing pleasure.

It turns out our private-eye local detectives Hank and Britt – played by Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James – have stumbled upon this secret plan to buy up Ocean Beach – the “Ocean Beach Conspiracy”. They’ve done this uncovering with the great assistance of a local – ahem – news blogger Laura. They have figured out that a sleazy San Diego lawyer named Zeitlin is representing two seemingly-different developer groups, ‘Playa Verde’ and ‘Tierra Nuestra’ and that there is a plan to combine them and pave it all over.

In a key scene, a map of Ocean Beach and the northern end of Point Loma is pinned to a wall with many colored markings, and our heroes examine it to get a sense of the scope of the conspiracy.

For help, the trio go to see OB’s own sandal-wearing Councilman, Sam Albrecht, who declares that Ocean Beach stands for “freedom, independence, and iconoclasm.” This cool dude – the councilman, vowing that no one is going to take the community from him, pledges to fight Zeitlin and the conspirators.

But then, in a scene filmed in the actual Litikers on Voltaire, an ally to the trio (Hank, Britt, and Laura) is murdered, while it’s assumed that Laura, the reporter/ blogger, has been kidnapped. The gunned-down ally, Jason, turns out to be the new hubby of Hank’s ex-wife, both of whom – Hanks’ ex and her new hubby – had just demanded that Hank leave them the fuck alone after he had royally fucked up, as he, Hank, in a desperate jealousy attempt to “help” his ex by exposing the lurid past of the new husband, simply showed himself for what he was – an old jealous ex. Of course, that’s only part of what he is.

And it turns out that the Councilman for OB is a sham – and may even work for Zeitlin.

Meanwhile, Britt is in cahoots with Zeitlin – only temporarily – because Zeitlin bailed him out after Britt was arrested for beating up a fellow student of his pregnant girlfriend – who herself had staged a drunken one-night stand with her college professor in perhaps an unconscious freak-out as she realized that Britt was about to spring the big question on her.

Now, is this all clear as mud?

So does Britt spill the beans to Zeitlin as to his plans being exposed, or do the boys join up for one last romp on their adversaries? Does the pregnant ex-girlfriend Katie get back with Britt? How does the death of her new husband affect Gretchen’s relationship with her ex – Hank? Or is Laura the new love-interest for Hank? Is the “Ocean Beach Conspiracy” stopped?

These are all questions to be resolved this week. The biggest question to be resolved, of course, is whether 20th Century Fox renews the show for a second year. We hope it does, and a lot of OBcians hope so too.

In fact, there are 2 things that people have been urged to do to help make certain the show is renewed:

1. E-mail FX Network and let the network know you want Terriers to stay on the air and that you like the show. user@fxnetworks.com

2. Facebook: Go to the FX Facebook page and “like” anything that has to do with Terriers, and also click on “share” so that you can spread the word on your Facebook page.http://www.facebook.com/FX

One of the historical ironies in all of this, is that there once was an “OB Conspiracy” in the 1970s and it did have something to do with development in Ocean Beach. But it was the other way around. The real “OB Conspiracy” was an underground group dedicated to stopping apartment and other developments in the community. They may have been responsible for starting fires in partially-built apartment structures and even lighting a fire inside a Winchell’s Donuts to discourage that company from setting up shop in OB.

And OB once did have a councilman by the name of “Sam,” but it was Sam Loftin, and he sat on the City Council of San Diego and represented the entire district that OB was in. Ol’ Sam Loftin – when once asked by OBcians how to solve community problems – responded that people in OB should pray more. That was before district elections.

Oh well, what’s more entertaining? Your community’s history or a TV show filmed in your community? Stop! You’re both right!

Related

I think the original OB Conspiracy didn’t have anything to do with the firebombs at Winchell’s but did I recall spray paint a developer’s office in La Jolla in retaliation for their developments here in OB.

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